The Ultimate Democrat Strategy: Turn America Into California

No state has suffered the last four years as much as has California – given that its progressive governor and legislative majorities serve as force multipliers for the Obama national agenda. We live in a 2X Obama state. And it is desirous for twelve or sixteen, not just four, more years in Washington.

The bluest state is polling at a 20 to 24 point lead for Barack Obama. Who cares that it is struggling with nearly 11% unemployment and facing a $16 billion budget shortfall? What does it matter that its public schools rated variously from 45th to 49th in the nation and that it is home to one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, forty percent of the nation’s illegal aliens, and the largest prison population in the country? If Ohio supposedly has a million Obama-phones, I shudder to wonder how many are in California.

Bleak? But such stats do not necessarily translate into the bad life for those Californians who vote – a least in comparison, I suppose, to Minnesota’s winters, Mississippi’s rate of welfare payouts, Baltimore’s streets, or Mexico’s police. We are living on the fumes of natural wealth and a century of prior investment by some pretty hard-working and far-sighted long dead Californians; and it takes a long time to screw all that up.

Indeed, the state’s voting population accepts the status quo: the growing underclass expects entitlements always to grow even greater; state employees are more than happy with in-the-future-unsustainable benefits and packages; and the coastal elite have enough money that they do not care whether they have to pay a bit more to subsidize others and create tranquility in their anointed souls. Meanwhile, California is clear and 78 degrees without humidity – in late September.

Rationally, you’d think that California would be ready to tell Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party to go to hell. After all, businesses are fleeing the state, tax rates are sky high, the unemployment rate is considerably higher than the national average, the schools stink and the state is overrun with takers, illegal aliens, and diehard criminals. Worse yet, the question isn’t IF California will go bankrupt so much as WHEN will California go bankrupt.

So, how can Democrats do so well? You have a core of liberal elites, legions of takers and union members who want the goodies to keep flowing, a large Hispanic population, many of whom are going to vote Democrat whether they’re well served by the party or not, and tons of poor Californians who’ll take any help they can get, even if it’s from the people who helped make them poor in the first place. Add to that the people who don’t realize how unsustainable the system is because as long as California can borrow enough money to pay its bill, they think everything is fine.

Ironically, the Democratic strategy isn’t based on making things better for Californians, it’s based on keeping them mired in poverty. The more people on public sector union members, food stamp recipients, and welfare moochers there are that are dependent on the government, the more votes the Democrats are guaranteed.

In other words, Republicans are better off when people move from poverty to the middle class to wealth, while Democrats are better off when people become poorer. That’s reflected in the policies that both parties advocate, although Democrats are not going to admit that they want to turn the entire country into California.